Discovery of the Titanic Shipwreck in 1985 Discovery of the Titanic Shipwreck Found by Famous Ocean Explorer Robert Ballard in 1985 A 23 x 12 ft. piece of the Titanic weighing 20 tons is on display at 'TITANIC The Artifact Exhibit' at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, California. (2003). (Photo by Michel Boutefeu/Getty Images) By Jennifer L. Goss, Contributing Writer Updated February 03, 2016. After the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, the great ship slumbered on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean for over 70 years before its wreckage was discovered. On September 1, 1985, a joint American-French expedition, headed by famous American oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard, found the Titanic over two miles below the ocean’s surface by using an unmanned submersible called Argo. This discovery gave new meaning to the Titanic’s sinking and gave birth to new dreams in ocean exploration.

The Titanic’s Journey Built in Ireland from 1909 to 1912 on behalf of the British-owned White Star Line, the Titanic officially left its final European port of Queenstown, Ireland on April 11, 1912. Carrying over 2,200 passengers and crew, the Titanic began its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, headed for New York. The Titanic carried passengers from all walks of life. Tickets were sold to first, second, and third class passengers; the latter group largely consisting of immigrants seeking a better life. continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States Famous first class passengers included the Astors, the Strausses, J. Bruce Ismay, and Benjamin Guggenheim. The Sinking of the Titanic Only three days after setting sail, the Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, somewhere in the North Atlantic. Although it took the ship over two and a half hours to sink, the vast majority of the crew and passengers perished due to a significant lack of lifeboats and improper use of those that did exist.

The lifeboats could have held over 1,100 people, but only 705 people were saved; nearly 1,500 perished the night the Titanic sank. People around the world were shocked when they heard that the “unsinkable” Titanic had sunk. They wanted to know the details of the disaster. Yet, however much the survivors could share, theories about how and why the Titanic sank would remain unsubstantiated until the wreckage of the great ship could be found. There was just one problem -- no one was sure exactly where the Titanic had sunk. Robert Ballard Robert Ballard wanted to find the wreckage of the Titanic. Ballard had grown up in San Diego, California, near the ocean, where he began his life-long fascination with the ocean and learned to scuba dive. After graduating from University of California, Santa Barbara in 1965 with degrees in both chemistry and geology, Ballard signed up for the Army. Two years later, in 1967, Ballard transferred to the Navy, where he was assigned to the Deep Submergence Group at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Research Institution in Massachusetts, thus beginning his illustrious career with submersibles.

By 1974, Ballard had received two doctoral degrees (marine geology and geophysics) from the University of Rhode Island and had spent a lot of time conducting deep water dives in a manned submersible he helped design, called Alvin. During subsequent dives in 1977 and 1979 near the Galapagos Rift, Ballard helped discover hydrothermal vents . More importantly, though, were the amazing plants that grew around these vents; it was the scientific study of these plants that led to the discovery of chemosynthesis , a process in which plants use chemical reactions rather than sunlight to get energy. Yet, however many shipwrecks Ballard explored and however much of the ocean floor he mapped, Ballard never forgot about the Titanic. Ballard has said, “I always wanted to find the Titanic. That was a Mt. Everest in my world -- one of those mountains that had never been climbed.”* Planning the Mission Ballard wasn’t the first to try to find the Titanic. Over the years, there had been several teams who had set out to find the wreckage of the famous ship; three of them had been funded by millionaire oilman Jack Grimm.

On his last expedition in 1982, Grimm had taken an underwater picture of what he believed to be a propeller from the Titanic; others believed it was only a rock. The hunt for the Titanic was to continue; this time with Ballard. But first, he needed funding. Ballard, who had a history working with the U.S. Navy, decided to ask them to fund his expedition. The Navy did decide to fund the project, but not because they had a vested interest in finding the Titanic; instead, the Navy wanted Ballard to create the technology needed to help them find and investigate the wreckage of two nuclear submarines (the USS Thresher and the USS Scorpion) that had been mysteriously lost in the 1960s. Ballard’s search for the Titanic provided a nice cover story for the Navy, who wanted to keep their search for their lost submarines a secret from the Soviet Union. Amazingly, Ballard maintained the secrecy of his mission even as he built the technology, used it to find and explore the remains of the USS Thresher, and the remains of the USS Scorpion.

Plus, while Ballard was investigating these wreckages, he learned more about debris fields, which gave him an idea as to how to find the Titanic. Done with his secret mission, Ballard was finally able to turn to his search for the Titanic. However, while other teams had spent months looking in vain for the Titanic, Ballard now had only two weeks for his search. Locating the Titanic It was late August 1985 when Ballard finally began his search for the Titanic. Ballard had invited a French research team, led by Jean-Louis Michel, to join this expedition. Aboard the Navy’s oceanographic survey ship, the Knorr , Ballard and his team headed to the likely location of the Titanic’s resting place -- one thousand miles due east of Boston, Massachusetts. While previous expeditions had used close sweeps of the ocean floor to search for the Titanic, Ballard decided to conduct mile-wide sweeps with the hope of being able to cover more area. Ballard was able to do this for two reasons. First, after examining the wreckage of the two submarines, he discovered that ocean currents often swept lighter pieces of the wreck downstream, thus leaving a long debris trail.

Secondly, Ballard had engineered a new unmanned submersible (Argo) that could explore wider areas, dive deeper, stay underwater for many weeks, and deliver crisp and clear pictures of what it found. This meant that Ballard and his team could stay on board the Knorr and monitor the images from Argo, hoping to find small, man-made pieces of debris. The Knorr arrived in the area on August 22, 1985 and began sweeps of the area using Argo. In the early morning hours of September 1, 1985, the first glimpse of the Titanic in 73 years appeared on Ballard’s screen. Exploring 12,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, the Argo relayed the image of one of the Titanic’s boilers embedded within the sandy surface of the ocean’s floor. The team on the Knorr was ecstatic about the discovery, although the realization that they were floating atop the graves of nearly 1500 individuals brought a somber tone to their celebration. The expedition proved to be instrumental in shedding light on the Titanic’s sinking. Prior to the discovery of the wreckage, there was some belief that the Titanic had sunk in one piece.

The 1985 images did not give researchers definitive information on the ship’s sinking; however, it did establish some basic foundations that countered early myths. Subsequent Expeditions Ballard returned to the Titanic in 1986 with new technology that allowed him to further explore the interior of the majestic ship. Images were collected that showed the remains of the beauty that so captivated those who had seen the Titanic at its height. The Grand Staircase, still-hanging chandeliers, and beautiful iron-work were all photographed during Ballard’s second successful expedition. Since 1985, there have been several dozen expeditions to the Titanic. Many of these expeditions have been controversial since salvagers brought up several thousand artifacts from the ship’s remains. Ballard has been widely outspoken against these efforts, claiming that he felt the ship deserved to rest in peace. During his two initial expeditions, he decided not to bring any discovered artifacts to the surface. He felt that others should honor the sanctity of the wreckage in a similar fashion. The most proliferate salvager of Titanic artifacts has been RMS Titanic Inc.

The company has brought many notable artifacts to the surface, including a large piece of the ship’s hull, passenger luggage, dinnerware, and even documents preserved in oxygen-starved compartments of steamer trunks. Due to negotiations between its predecessor company and the French government, the RMS Titanic group cannot sell the artifacts; however, they can put them on display and charge admission to recoup expenses and create profit. The largest exhibition of these artifacts today is located in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Luxor Hotel. Titanic Returns to the Silver Screen Although the Titanic has been featured in numerous films through the years, it was James Cameron’s 1997 film, Titanic, that stimulated massive, world-wide interest in the ship’s fate. The movie became one of the most popular films ever made. The 100th Anniversary The 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in 2012 also fueled renewed interest in the tragedy, 15 years after Cameron’s film. The wreckage site is now eligible to be named a protected area as a UNESCO World Heritage site and Ballard is also working to preserve what remains.

An expedition in August 2012, revealed that increased human activity has caused the ship to break down at a faster rate than previously expected. Ballard has a plan to slow the process of degradation – painting the Titanic while it remains 12,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. The discovery of the Titanic was a momentous accomplishment but now the world is conflicted about how to care for this historical wreck. * Quote by Dr. Robert Ballard from National Geographic’s Titanic: Ballard’s Secret Mission (2008). Robert Ballard, Ocean Explorer Information, Facts, News, Photos -- National Geographic Photograph by Emory Kristof Photograph by Becky Hale Among the most accomplished and well known of the world's deep-sea explorers, Robert Ballard is best known for his historic discoveries of hydrothermal vents, the sunken R.M.S. Titanic, the German battleship Bismarck, and numerous other contemporary and ancient shipwrecks around the world. During his long career he has conducted more than 120 deep-sea expeditions using the latest in exploration technology, and he is a pioneer in the early use of deep-diving submarines.

Ballard has pioneered distance learning in the classrooms of America and around the world with the JASON Project, an award-winning educational program that reaches more than 1 million students and 25,000 teachers annually. He has received prestigious awards from the Explorers Club and the National Geographic Society—the Explorers Medal and the Hubbard Medal, respectively—as well as the Lindbergh Award. In 2003 President George W. Bush presented him with the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal in the Oval Office of the White House. Ballard is president of the Institute for Exploration, scientist emeritus from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Director of the newly created Center for Ocean Exploration at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. His new ship of exploration, the E/V Nautilus operated by his Ocean Exploration Trust spends four to five months at sea each year and will be exploring the Black Sea, Aegean, Mediterranean, and Atlantic Ocean in 2011, beaming back his exploration around the clock on Nautilus Live . Explorer Bob Ballard goes after JFK's PT 109, and Senator Ted Kennedy recalls a heroic brother's return.

Kids Ocean explorer Bob Ballard talks about growing up and what he was like as a kid. News Explorer Bob Ballard discusses the importance of underwater exploration. National Geographic Initiatives CNO, Titanic Explorer, Nobel Laureate to Headline Naval S&T Expo CNO, Titanic Explorer, Nobel Laureate to Headline Naval S&T Expo Story Number: NNS141118-05Release Date: 11/18/2014 12:39:00 PM From Office of Naval Research Public Affairs ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- The leader of the expedition that discovered the Titanic wreck and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist are among a growing lineup of speakers slated for the Naval Future Force Science and Technology (S&T) Expo Feb. 4-5 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the naval S&T community's premier event gives attendees the opportunity to interact with Department of Defense (DoD) leaders, who will discuss the status of key programs and new research opportunities. The Expo also will feature as many as 100 exhibits from industry, academia and government.

A revised Naval S&T Strategy detailing ONR's investments in scientific research will be unveiled at the event and set the tone and agenda for the Expo. The strategy will provide in-depth looks at research in robotics, autonomy, cyberspace, advanced training technology, power and energy, and other disciplines. Incoming Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Mathias Winter will host the event and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert will deliver one of the keynote speeches. "This event is crucial for us to communicate opportunities to potential research partners -- and for participants to learn how they can work with us to achieve the Department of the Navy's goals for delivering innovative technologies," said current Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, who will pass the torch to Winter Jan. 1. "From past experience, I can say this event is essential to getting the best and brightest in one place to share research challenges, new ideas and innovative concepts." Already confirmed to speak at the event are: Dr. Robert Ballard, president and founder of Ocean Exploration Trust and world-famous undersea explorer; Dr. Bill Phillips, University of Maryland professor and winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on laser-cooling methods; and Maj. Gen.

Albert Husniaux, NATO's chief scientist. Alan Shaffer, principal deputy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, will lead a panel discussion on technology and innovation featuring leaders of S&T organizations from throughout DoD on the Expo's first day. More speakers will be announced as they are confirmed. Check the Expo website and ONR's Twitter and Facebook profiles for periodic updates. In addition to distinguished guest speakers, ONR leaders such as Director of Research Dr. Larry Schuette and Director of Technology Dr. Tom Killion will discuss challenges and opportunities. There also will be breakout rooms to learn more about each of ONR's departments and conduct one-on-one appointments with subject matter experts. The event is co-sponsored by the American Society of Naval Engineers. About the Naval Future Force S&T Expo The Naval Future Force S&T Expo is the Office of Naval Research's premier event. Formerly the S&T Partnership Conference, it provides access to naval leaders and opportunities for dialogue on requirements, challenges and new opportunities in S&T. The Expo is intended to raise awareness of a revised Naval S&T Strategy, program initiatives and challenges, as well as explore new partnerships and ideas to achieve Navy and Marine Corps goals.

The event will include specialty forums to discuss themes such as: small business, co-sponsored with the Navy Office of Small Business Programs; innovative technologies; visionary research; science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); doing business with ONR; and international S&T perspectives. Click here to learn more. About the Office of Naval Research The Department of the Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR) provides the science and technology necessary to maintain the Navy and Marine Corps' technological advantage. Through its affiliates, ONR is a leader in science and technology with engagement in 50 states, 70 countries, 1,035 institutions of higher learning and 914 industry partners. ONR employs more than 1,000 people, comprising uniformed, civilian and contract personnel, with additional employees at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C. For more news from Office of Naval Research, visit . WRECKAGE OF TITANIC REPORTED DISCOVERED 12,000 FEET DOWN - NYTimes.com WRECKAGE OF TITANIC REPORTED DISCOVERED 12,000 FEET DOWN By WILLIAM J.

BROAD Published: September 3, 1985 A team of American and French researchers was reported yesterday to have found the hulk of the luxury liner Titanic south of Newfoundland. After combing the site with new undersea robots, the team was able to verify the ship's identity with cameras and sonar early Sunday morning, according to American and French officials. A French announcement said the wreck was found at a depth of more than 12,000 feet. The discovery came more than 73 years after the luxury liner, said to be unsinkable, struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and went down, resulting in the loss of more than 1,500 lives. The ship was the biggest and most luxurious liner of her day. Dr. Robert D. Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, the leader of the joint expedition, said in a ship-to-shore interview that pieces of the ship were found early Sunday. ''To finally put those souls to rest was a very nice feeling,'' Dr. Ballard told the Canadian television network CTV. The Titanic's wreckage had eluded at least three teams who set out to find it. Researchers have come back with only dim, tantalizing hints.

One account put the wreck at 370 miles south of Newfoundland, but there were conflicting figures. The American-French team was working in the general area where the Titanic was believed to have gone down, generally put at 41 degrees 46 minutes north latitude, 50 degrees 14 minutes west longitude. In an announcement, the Institute for Research and Exploitation of the Sea, a French Government organization, said the wreck was positively identified by a French-made submarine sonar system and American-made underwater cameras. The American part of the expedition, financed by the National Geographic Society, is based aboard the oceanographic survey ship Knorr, built for the Navy. The ship, 244 feet in length, tows Woods Hole's robot submarine Argo, equipped with video and still cameras. ''We went smack dab over a gorgeous boiler,'' Dr. Ballard said. ''We came on it early this morning,'' he said. ''It was just bang, there it was on top of it.

Our initial reaction was excitement, then a coming down off that to realize we had found the ship where 1,500 people had died.'' For ''a lot of us who had researched it for so many years, the Titanic has taken on more than a shipwreck,'' Dr. Ballard said, adding that it seemed somehow to have a far larger dimension - ''a true disaster.'' She Stops Taking Calls After the announcement was made in France, the Knorr was beseiged by ship-to-shore callers, and the ship ceased taking calls. Shelly Lauzon, a spokesman at Woods Hole, Mass., said the institution's own people had not reached their team. ''It's my understanding,'' she said, ''that it was the Argo that made the discovery.'' The French said that the French and American organizations in charge had agreed beforehand to make no public statement on the success of their search ''unless they were absolutely certain of the facts.'' The Titanic sank on her way from Southampton, England, to New York after striking an iceberg April 14, 1912. She took more than 1,500 of her approximately 2,200 passengers and crew to their death.

Great Wealth Was Aboard She was believed to be ''unsinkable'' because of her double bottom and reinforced bulkheads. In 1980 an American expediation surveyed the North Atlantic with sonar and announced that it might have traced the Titanic's hulk. But the expedition's leaders were later unable to confirm this. The French announcement yesterday said that a French research ship, the Suroit, began work in the area on June 28 and was joined on Aug. 5 by the Knorr. It added that the responsibilities of the two teams had been set forth in an agreement signed in June just days before the French ship set out. ''Those on board the Suroit were almost sure they had pinned down the Titantic,'' the announcement said. ''But we had to be certain, and the agreement prevented making any statement. The cameras of the American Argo system came in the past few days and confirmed the discovery.'' Secret Negotiations Reported The French announcement did not give the site of the wreck, apparently to maintain secrecy. The American and French research teams are said to have reached their agreement only after long, secret negotiations.

Their final agreement, code-named White Star after the White Star line, the British company that owned the Titanic, specifies the rights to anything recovered from the wreck under both French and American law, according to the French announcement. A news conference will be held Sept. 13 in Paris and Washington at which the discoverers will describe their findings, according to the French announcement. Ten millionaires were aboard the Titanic,and the safe storage room was filled with valuables, including diamonds valued at $7 million in 1912. The Titanic was carrying some of the richest of the world's rich, including John Jacob Astor and his wife, who bore his child after Astor went down with the ship. They were aboard in a suite that cost $4,000 for the one-way voyage. Isidor Straus of Macy's was lost, as was Mrs. Straus, who refused to leave her husband of many years to enter a lifeboat. 1 Robert Ballard - Famous Ocean Explorers on Sea and Sky Robert Ballard American oceanographer, explorer, geologist and underwater archaeologist. Noted for his work in underwater archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks.

Discovered the famous wreck of the RMS Titanic in 1985. Robert Ballard is an American oceanographer, explorer, geologist, and underwater archaeologist. He was born on June 30, 1942 in Wichita, Kansas. His family soon moved to San Diego, California. He developed an early interest in the Sea when he read the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Growing up in San Diego, the ocean was always nearby. Ballard developed an interest in underwater exploration and closely followed expeditions such as those of the bathyscaphe Trieste. In 1962 his father helped him to get a part-time job with the Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation. He helped the company work on a proposal to build a three-man deep-sea submersible. During this time he attended the University of California in Santa Barbara. He earned degrees in chemistry and geology in 1965. While attending college, he completed the U.S. Army's ROTC program, which gave him an Army officer's commission in Army Intelligence. In 1966 he received his Master's degree in geophysics from the University of Hawaii's Institute of Geophysics.

After graduating, he got married and returned to work at North American Aviation. NOAA image of hydrothermal vents (black smokers) on the ocean floor In 1967 Ballard was called to active duty by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He requested a transfer to the Navy to make better use of his training as a marine geologist. He was assigned to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Research Institution in Massachusetts where he worked on underwater submersibles and helped to develop the now-famous Alvin. He also worked as a liaison between Woods Hole and the Office of Naval Research. After leaving the Navy, he returned to Woods Hole as a research fellow. He worked to persuade organizations to help fund research using the new deep-sea submersible, Alvin. In 1974 Ballard received his Ph. D. in geology and geophysics from the University of Rhode Island. He then went to work at Woods Hole as a full-time marine scientist. His first dive was in the submersible Ben Franklin off the coast of Florida for a Woods Hole expedition.

In 1975 Ballard participated in an expedition to explore the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, diving as deep as 9,000 feet (2,750 meters). In 1979 he was part of an expedition that discovered active hydrothermal vents near the Galapagos Islands. Ballard and his crewmates were among the first to observe the "black smokers", underwater volcanoes that spewed dark, chemical-rich, boiling water. They were amazed to find abundant plant and animal life growing around these vents where the water was hot enough to melt lead. They had discovered an entirely new type of ecosystem. Instead of sunlight, these organisms depended on the chemicals from the vents to make food. This process came to be known as chemosynthesis. NOAA image of the wreck of Titanic Ballard soon developed an interest in marine archaeology. In 1980 he helped to develop small, unmanned submersibles that could be controlled by a tether from a surface ship. They created Argo, a robotic sub that could transmit live video and could be controlled remotely. Ballard was approached by the U.S. Navy to help search for two sunken submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher.

After the successful completion of these missions, he soon set his sights on the Holy Grail of underwater archaeology, the wreck of the Titanic. On August 22, 1985 the U.S. Navy research ship Knorr arrived at the last known site of the Titanic. Argo was deployed to search for the wreck. On September 1, 1985, Argo spotted debris on the ocean floor. Next, a boiler was discovered. Soon after that, the hull of the mighty ocean liner appeared out of the darkness. Ballard's team searched the ship's exterior and found that it had split in two. Ballard considered the wreck to be a cemetery and refused to remove any artifacts from the site. A year later, he and his team returned to do a more detailed study of the ship. This time Ballard was able to personally inspect the site using Alvin. The discovery of Titanic planted Ballard firmly in the pages of history and made him an instant celebrity. During later expeditions, he discovered other famous shipwrecks including the German battleship Bismarck and the passenger liner Lusitania. He also located the wrecks of John F.

Kennedy's PT-109, and the Yorktown, which was sunk in the Battle of Midway. In 1989 Ballard established the JASON project, an education program designed to allow students to follow underwater expeditions. To date, Ballard has conducted more than 120 undersea expeditions and has helped to pioneer the use of submarine technology and the science of underwater archaeology. He has received a number of awards and honors, including the Lindbergh Award, the Explorers Medal, and the Hubbard Medal. He is currently the President of the Institute of Exploration in Mystic Connecticut, Scientist Emeritus at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Director of the Institution for Archaeological Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. NOAA Ocean Explorer: R.M.S. Titanic Expedition 2004 A view of the bow and railing of the R.M.S. Titanic. Click image for larger view and image credit. R.M.S. Titanic 2004 Expedition May 27  June 12, 2004 Jeremy B.

Weirich Lieutenant Junior Grade, NOAA Corps Marine Archaeologist NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration Nearly 20 years after first finding the sunken remains of the RMS Titanic, marine explorer Robert Ballard returned in June 2004 to help the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study the ship's rapid deterioration. A professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island (URI) and director of its Institute for Archaeological Oceanography, Dr. Ballard and his team of scientists from NOAA and other institutions spent 11 days at the site, mapping the ship and conducting scientific analyses of its deterioration. The team worked aboard the NOAA Research Vessel Ronald H. Brown from May 30 through June 9, and used remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to conduct a sophisticated documentation of the state of Titanic that was not possible in the 1980s. This Look, dont touch mission utilized high-definition video and stereoscopic still images to provide an updated assessment of the wreck site. The science team included Dr. Dwight Coleman of URI and the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration (MAIFE) , who was the expedition's research chief.

As the marine archaeologist with NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration, I oversaw the expedition's marine archaeology component. In addition to mapping the Titanic, expedition goals included the microbial research of scientist Roy Cullimore, who studied the natural deterioration of the ship's hull. Tiny microbes that feed on iron and create icicle-shaped formations called rusticles are responsible for this deterioration. While rusticles have been observed for many years, little is known about them. As the nation's ocean agency, NOAA has a vested interest in the scientific and cultural aspects of the Titanic, and in its appropriate treatment and preservation. NOAA's focus is to build a baseline of scientific information from which we can measure the shipwreck's processes and deterioration, and then apply the knowledge we gain to other deep-water shipwrecks and submerged cultural resources. A close-up of the Titanic's bow. Click image for larger view and image credit. A view of the steering motor on the bridge of the Titanic. Click image for larger view and image credit. Interview With Robert Ballard Articles Interview With Robert Ballard Photograph by Mark Thiessen, NGS Staff Robert Ballard is one of the best known deep-sea explorers.

He is known for discoveries of hydrothermal vents, the sunken R.M.S. Titanic, the German battleship Bismarck, and other shipwrecks around the world. He is a pioneer in the early use of deep-diving submarines. His new high-tech Inner Space Center at the University of Rhode Island links scientists all over the world and makes it possible to identify new discoveries in real-time. When he was a child: "I was a very active kid with lots of interests including sports (football, basketball, and tennis), scouting (Cub Scouts, Boys Scouts, and Explorer Scouts), YMCA Club, fishing, and studies." “Never get into the thick of thin things." JOB: Marine geologist, deep-sea explorer, and NG Explorer-in-Residence. WHAT HE DOES: Uses new technologies to explore the deep ocean. FAVORITE PASTIME AS A KID: Sports, scouts, fishing, and studying. HERO: Captain Nemo [from the book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne] and his submarine the Nautilus.

TYPICAL DAY: Working with staff across New England via the Internet, or traveling on the E/V NAUTILUS ship or raising funds to support my work. FOR FUN: Traveling to the Bahamas, Jackson Hole, and Block Island. FAVORITE PLACE TO EXPLORE: Bora Bora [in French Polynesia]. BEST ADVICE: Follow your dreams and don’t let anyone talk you out of them. TRAVEL GEAR: Sudoku [puzzles]. The Man Who Found the Titanic Is Not Done Yet The World's Largest Carbon Capture Tech Is Online The Man Who Found the Titanic Is Not Done Yet Thirty years ago, Bob Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic. He could have stopped there. Yet today, at seventy-three, he remains the world's most vigorous ocean explorer. Most Popular Aug 4, 2015 September 1, 1985, 1:05 a.m., the North Atlantic Robert Ballard is belowdecks on the R/V Knorr, a 279-foot research vessel owned by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, staring at a bank of screens.

He wears a blue cap and a blue shirt and his face is lit by the humming blue glow of the monitors. At forty-three he has completed more than seventy expeditions as an oceanographic explorer and discovered sprawling geologic phenomena, entire species, whole undersea worlds no one knew existed. And now this. Thirteen thousand feet below him, Argo, an underwater search vehicle equipped with a video camera, has captured images of craters—craters that would be inexplicable outside the context of this expedition. Ballard has long been trying to find the wreck of the RMS Titanic. So many men have come looking for the unsinkable boat since it sank in 1912 that Ballard has a decent idea where the massive ship is not. Where it actually came to rest on the ocean floor is a much more difficult proposition. Not so much a needle in a haystack as a needle in a haystack at the bottom of the ocean. In his explorations he has found important vessels, and he will go on to find many more, any one of which would constitute a major find, the capstone of a career. But the Titanic is orders of magnitude different. The Titanic is the Holy Grail .

He discovered the wreck of the German battleship Bismarck too. In 1989, in the North Atlantic. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Of course, the truth is that the Titanic isn't even Ballard's real mission. This is not an Ahab situation, and Ballard is not on a quest. Earlier this year the United States Navy asked Ballard, who is a commander in the reserves, to assist in a secret mission to find two nuclear submarines that had been lost at sea for two decades—they needed to determine whether the subs were releasing radiation into the ocean. And they needed Argo to do it. The Navy told Ballard that if he used Argo to find the lost subs, and if he had any time left over before the Knorr had to get back to port, they would secretly finance his search for the Titanic. Most Popular He found the subs, and now here he is in the control room, and images of these impressions on the ocean floor have Ballard wide awake. More than seven decades after the ship's catastrophic collision with an iceberg, could it be that these craters were left by some of its shattered remains? Argo's camera, the explorer's powerful unblinking eye, closes in.

And what it picks up next will alter the course of Bob Ballard's life. Bob Ballard Ben Sklar May 2015, morning, Port of Galveston, Texas Ballard stands on the stern of his ship, the Nautilus, waiting. At seventy-three he stands over six feet tall, he's trim, and his skin is tanned and tight after more than five decades spent mostly at sea. The sun is shining in Galveston this morning, and a breeze drifts across the deck. He's waiting for a group of donors, some of the many financial backers who help make possible his adventures. After a few minutes, an SUV pulls into the vast gray parking lot on the pier next to the ship. A group of Houstonians wearing pressed golf shirts and flowery sundresses has arrived to meet the famous explorer and to get a tour of his ship, and Ballard bounds down the gangway to greet them with smiles and big handshakes all around. He bends at the waist to greet a little girl and ask her name.

He leads the group aboard, showing them the way with a large upturned palm and holding the hands of the ladies as they climb from the pier to the deck, gestures he has performed hundreds of times for hundreds of his supporters. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below As always he wears his Nautilus uniform, the same outfit every crew member on board is issued: navy-blue polo shirt with a gold compass insignia. Underneath it reads E/V Nautilus. Not R/V, because Nautilus is not a research vessel. Research vessels set out to prove hypotheses, which, if you ask Bob Ballard, can be a little redundant. You're proving something you already pretty much know. No, the Nautilus is an exploration vessel, like it says on the shirts: E/V. He wears a matching navy-blue cap. No name, no rank. All the blue polo shirts and caps are the same. The point is, everybody on the Nautilus is important. Fifty-five percent of his staff (his "corps") are women—a Ballard mandate—and an even higher percentage are students at some stage of their undergraduate or graduate studies in oceanography, geology, biology, archaeology, engineering, or filmmaking.

("You don't have to pay 'em," he says of the students.) You get to issue mandates when you are president of the trust that you created and that owns the ship, as Ballard is. The Ocean Exploration Trust. His trust. His ship. His responsibility. Money is a frequent topic of conversation for Ballard, because it takes $10 million annually to keep the Nautilus in the water for four to six months every year. (Similar vessels, he says, cost six times that.) Ballard's unique position as an oceanographer/owner makes him both liberated and beholden. For that money that frees him to explore, Ballard must regularly court private donors, corporate sponsors, and politicians who believe in his mission enough to fight for public dollars. The donors love to hear about the Titanic. The politicians are guided by an interest in everything from Ballard's commitment to education to his exploration of the earth's crust. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below These days, empirical findings have become the slings and arrows in some very nasty and subjective debates. And the scientific method, which has been the wellspring for so much of America's greatness, now seems to be turning the country against itself.

In this atmosphere, Bob Ballard and his relentless quest to master the ocean bottom have, improbably, become the basis for a broad political consensus. Rep. John Culberson, a Republican from Houston and chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, and science, has won millions of dollars of financial backing for the Ocean Exploration Program run by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which supports Ballard's trust. The congressman is intensely interested in Ballard's work discovering natural resources in the nation's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a collar of ocean floor along U.S. coastlines to which it owns exploration rights. "Dr. Ballard's the first scientist I'm aware of that's made a concerted effort to map the EEZ and catalog the mineral resources there," he says. "China's cleaning our clock in locking up 97 percent of the world's rare-earth elements, controlling vital resources, and positioning itself to become the superpower of the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. So Dr.

Ballard is an easy sell to my colleagues, Republican and Democrat." Most Popular After Ballard finishes the tour for the wealthy Houstonians—nice folks, good time—he is sitting in his quarters, a sparse wood-paneled room above deck with a bunk, a desk, and two framed illustrations from his favorite book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, on the walls. His phone buzzes with an incoming email. He fastens his glasses, the kind that snap apart at the bridge, and scrolls down. "Oohhhh, wow. Yes! Yes! God bless him. The House has already . . . now the Senate . . . Yes!" It's an email from a contact in Washington. Ballard and his team have been waiting to hear about a major funding request from Culberson's committee, and the chairman has come through. "Yes! I just have to sit here for a minute." He drums his fingers on the table, his mind racing. Claps a few claps into the air. "That is absolutely huge. Oh, man. Culberson gets it." Ballard (in hat) on the nuclear sub NR-1 searching for geothermal vents near Iceland for National Geographic in 1985.

Getty Titanic brought him fame and a little fortune and the promise of a career as long as he wanted one. He wrote a cover story for National Geographic, where he was an explorer in residence. And yet it was a discovery of a known thing. Ballard seems prouder of his discoveries of the prizes for which he was not looking—the prizes you win, he says, by spending "time on the bottom." In 1977 he discovered the very existence of hydrothermal vents, hot springs in the ocean floor near where tectonic plates move apart from one another, releasing a steady flow of superheated water from deep in the earth's crust. The water is a chaotic mess of mineral-rich fluids including sulfide that, when discharged into the frigid, pressurized water on the ocean floor, can create new ecosystems hospitable to a wild mix of creatures. In the worlds of marine biology and geology, it was a monumental discovery. In the actual world, nobody much noticed. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below He discovered the wreck of the German battleship Bismarck too. In 1989, in the North Atlantic.

He discovered the wreck of PT-109, JFK's World War II boat, in 2002. The naval ships sunk at Guadalcanal. He was first to explore the Lusitania. But the Titanic is what keeps the people showing up. The Titanic is why yesterday three hundred local schoolchildren flocked to the Nautilus to meet Ballard and to run around his ship. He holds his thumb and forefinger close together. "In all my discoveries, just that much." "When I found hydrothermal vents, no kid wrote me a letter," he says. "The Titanic was my seventieth expedition. But when I got back from the Titanic, I couldn't see my desk. The mail that came in—they poured it on my desk while I was still at sea. I said, what is this? They said, it's kids. And they were all saying the same thing: What do I have to do to do what you do?" Ballard thought a lot about those letters. Thought about what he could do with this knowledge that there were children out there who wanted to be a famous explorer, which he suddenly was. He was forty-three.

Born in Kansas into a hard-living family ("My grandfather was shot in a gunfight") and raised middle class in California, he had become a respected oceanographer and a commander in the Navy. He had clawed through the publish-or-perish tenure process in academia and earned job security at the University of Rhode Island. But now he was the man who had found the Titanic, and he would be for the rest of his life and well after his death. He didn't have to give lectures or coauthor papers. He did, however, want to teach. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below The letters from children gave him an idea: With the right technology, maybe he could teach from the sea. Ben Sklar Most Popular Not just any oceanographer gets to have his own ship. Nautilus is a 211-foot former East German research vessel, built in 1967, that Ballard has so far spent $15 million reconditioning and outfitting as an exploration vessel. It carries seventeen crew and thirty-one scientists and operations specialists.

On the ship's stern sits a winch the size of a Volkswagen that is used for raising and lowering Ballard's two remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), Hercules and Argus, between the ship and the ocean floor—the winches can release more than forty-eight hundred meters of steel cable into the sea. Belowdecks, he has installed remote command centers throughout the ship—small, darkened rooms with a jumble of screens on the walls that constitute the nervous system of this whole operation, allowing Ballard and his crew to show the world what the ocean floor looks like. Mankind has only ever seen less than 10 percent of the ocean floor, which is not very much at all, if you ask Bob Ballard. Ballard is usually on board for one month a year. The rest of the time, he is tethered to the Nautilus by technology from his home in Connecticut or his office in Rhode Island. He has many more expeditions behind him than in front of him, and that creates a tense urgency in a man. Especially a man who appreciates the coefficient of his mortality, and knows by now that his ambition will outpace his life by a hundredfold, which is a startling discovery all its own.

But to watch him aboard his ship is to witness a man possessed by the possibility of what he might find tomorrow. At this particular moment he is standing on the deck of the Nautilus in Galveston, 8:00 a.m., the sun trying to burn through a morning haze. In three weeks his ship will steam south through the Gulf of Mexico, through the Panama Canal, and down to the Galapagos Islands, where Ballard will revisit the site of the hydrothermal vents and "black smokers" he and his team discovered in 1977. "You can't discover unless you're exploring. It's time. What are you looking at? A whole lotta nothing. Turn the corner. Boom! We never knew there were black smokers at 650 Fahrenheit coming out—till we turned the corner," he says. "It's all about being there so you can get lucky. And you have to do it as cheaply as possible." Advertisement - Continue Reading Below It's hard to imagine that Magellan ever had occasion to say Boom! Harder still to imagine Columbus squiring Isabella aboard the Santa Maria to show how her money was being spent.

But with every molecule of dry land now surveilled from space, this is how Ballard describes how the Nautilus is set up to handle the boom moments that come with discovering all that remains to be discovered in the three-dimensional chess of the oceans deep: "It's like an emergency room. What's going to come in on an ambulance to the ER at two in the morning? You have no idea. So, how are you going to deal with that uncertainty? Well, you have some people there to do triage and keep the person alive. But then what do you do when you need a specific expert? You have doctors on call, and you call the right one for the situation: 'Get in here.' That's how we run this ship. When we find something, we call the right expert." Ballard has assembled, over the years, an astonishing roster of experts in many fields, all volunteers. When the -Nautilus is at sea, towing its cameras through the depths, and it finds something interesting, the crew needs to know whether to stop and explore further or move on. And they can't keep fifty experts on board at all times. So the Nautilus has a phone system with a 401 area code.

"The ship thinks it's in Rhode Island at all times, no matter where on the planet it is," Ballard says. "When we need an expert, we just pick up the phone. It goes like this: 'Hi, Deb? I know it's 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, but can you boot up your laptop? We got something. We wanna know what it is. The ship is hovering in twenty thousand feet of water wondering, up or down?' And we do this literally all the time. All. The. Time. Within twenty minutes we have to deliver the brightest mind in America on whatever subject it is to the spot of the discovery to tell us what to do. If you tell us go, we go into a response strategy," Ballard says, jutting his chin into the breeze. "It's an unbelievable feeling. The closest thing to a drug for me is Coke Zero. I don't drink coffee, I don't smoke. I do have wine. But you can't beat the thrill of finding something on the bottom. And I'll wait and wait and wait for it.

We just had one on the last trip!" Advertisement - Continue Reading Below That one went like this: "We're down in the Lesser Antilles, in Grenada. A volcano called Kick'em Jenny is down here. Two plates going at it. It's the only active underwater volcano along the Lesser Antilles. We're looking at it, and we have this brand-new sonar on the ship that can make amazing maps—$3 million mapping sonar, because you need maps. We can go to any place on the planet and make digitized maps of the ocean floor. "We noticed that Kick'em Jenny collapsed in itself and set off a big avalanche. Okay, big deal. Volcanologist says, Okay, but I wanna go down to the bottom of the avalanche and pick up some rocks. Fine. Well, it's the last day of the season, we had done everything we wanted to do. We told the National Geographic film crew to leave. We were doing a show, they had been with us for four months, but we told them we were just gonna go down and pick up some rocks. What do you expect to be down at the base of an undersea landslide? Rocks. But! Surprise.

We head down the hill and we come across this river coming out of the side of the avalanche. What is this? It's a river. I know it's a river, dummy, but how do you make a river in an avalanche at the bottom of the ocean? And it's funny--colored. And it's pretty violent. We ran up to the command center. Most Popular "It starts off acting like an avalanche. But then—what's that? I dunno. Never seen an avalanche leak. It's like someone took a knife and cut across it. We're seeing all these shells and black stuff . . . an entire community of life here! It's chemosynthesizing"—chemosynthesis being the process of microorganisms creating energy brought about by chemical reactions rather than the sun, as in photosynthesis. "Worms, brittle stars. This is at five thousand feet. I'm feeling very stupid right now. Gigantic mussels. Fourteen inches! Weird parasites living in them, bleeding blood, ghastly—like Tron! "We said, Whaaa? Working hypothesis: We're off the Orinoco, which is the Mississippi of South America. Full of organics.

And the avalanche squashed it and squeezed out methane—we think—and they're using chemosynthesis to process the methane into energy. Well, we had about a thousand scientists on the phone in twenty minutes. And they all said, go down! No one had ever seen this. How many avalanches are there in the ocean? Lots. But no one had ever gone down the bottom of an avalanche to see. So how many of these things have we missed? Lots. It's like Christopher Columbus coming back with this thing and saying, 'We're calling this a pine cone.' Well, how many do you think there are? 'Lots.' " It was a major discovery. Ballard steps back, leans on the gunwale of his ship, shaking his head just a little in amazement. His eyes are wide open. Behind them, his mind is somewhere else. His mind is five thousand feet under the Atlantic Ocean, off the mouth of the Orinoco River. "You can't beat that."

Question: Which US Marine explorer discovered the wreck of the Titanic?
Answer: Robert Ballard